1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for blocking a specific network in a mobile communication terminal. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for designating a network of an unwanted service reception as a blocked network, managing the blocked network and releasing the blocked network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many portable terminals on the market today provide an automatic network selection function. The automatic network selection function is useful when a user is located in a region such as Europe which includes several countries and several service providers. That is, when a network signal strength of a service provider in an adjacent country is greater than a signal strength of a registered home Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) of the user's terminal, the service is automatically switched to the network having the greater signal strength. However, in such a case, the user is likely to use a roaming network and thus pay a roaming fee.
To avoid such a disadvantage, most users make use of a manual network selection function of the terminal. By virtue of the manual network selection function of the terminal, the user can acquire a list of available PLMNs at the current location and select a desired intended network from the acquired list of available PLMNs. Thus, using the manual network selection function, it is possible to block the use of the unintended network as compared to the automatic network selection function.
However, the user still suffers from inconvenience when using the manual network selection function. That is, the manual network selection function only allows use of the network selected by the user. Accordingly, when the user moves to a region of the selected network that has weak signal strength, the terminal is subject to a temporarily limited service reception or no service status. As a result, the normal call reception and transmission is not feasible. Furthermore, under the weak signal strength of the registered network, even when roaming to another network is allowed, the user may not want to use a specific network. For example, the specific networks not wanted to be used by the user can include a provider network which imposes a high roaming fee, a network which provides an unwanted service, and a network of unsatisfactory service quality. In this situation, the user may want to use the service from other networks than the specific network.
The user can use a preferred network function. The preferred network function generates a list of available networks for use during roaming and defines the priority of the networks in the generated network list. However, using the preferred network function, the user needs to determine the network list and adjust the priority with every location change, and cannot block an unconscious use of the unintended network. In this case, the user can ask for service permission from the other networks than the specific network.